alluding to Joni Mitchell’s Rainy Night House I recently read that Taylor Swift wanted the part in a movie on Mitchell. I see Swift’s photo all over the Internet, but it wasn’t until Sunday that I finally heard one of … Continue reading →

Over the holidays, daytime temps have been hovering around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Considering my sister-in-law’s flight into Los Angeles from Cody, Wyoming, was delayed by storms for four days, it seems churlish to complain about the warm weather. I’ll just … Continue reading →

I decided last year that I needed to break up the big border that covers most of the back garden and carve a narrow, oblique path through part of it. Nothing formal and really just an access path, curving probably … Continue reading →

There’s an unspoken Upstairs/Downstairs, front garden/back garden dynamic at home, as I suspect there is with most hands-on gardens. Most of the front garden isn’t tinkered with much anymore, needs little attention, more of just keeping an eye on sizes. … Continue reading →

I got a very late start on the self-guided Lawn-to-Garden tour Saturday, thirty gardens from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., just because Friday was an unusually odd workday and I lingered and wallowed far too long in the glory of … Continue reading →

Bicycling past this house a couple days ago, I made a hard U-turn to check out the swath of silvery groundcover running alongside the sidewalk underplanting a couple shrubs. It’s probably a variety of Gazania rigens. As an inveterate plant … Continue reading →

A little prelude to upcoming posts on this tour held last Saturday in Venice, California. None of these homes were on the tour. They just happened to be located in the neighborhoods we toured through. Venice oozes a love of … Continue reading →

Long Beach Water Department is leading by example to gently ease citizens out of the mindset that wants to seed or unroll mowable turf grass as the default landscape. Who else is better positioned to educate the public on alternative … Continue reading →